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Author Topic: Eugenics  (Read 17192 times)

Bauglir

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Re: Eugenics
« Reply #75 on: January 09, 2013, 02:12:15 pm »

For one thing, species wide implementation or nothing. In a ww3 scenario, i could justify it amongst the military with strict controls.
I cannot imagine WW3 lasting long enough for a controlled breeding program to meaningfully impact its course.
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In the days when Sussman was a novice, Minsky once came to him as he sat hacking at the PDP-6.
“What are you doing?”, asked Minsky. “I am training a randomly wired neural net to play Tic-Tac-Toe” Sussman replied. “Why is the net wired randomly?”, asked Minsky. “I do not want it to have any preconceptions of how to play”, Sussman said.
Minsky then shut his eyes. “Why do you close your eyes?”, Sussman asked his teacher.
“So that the room will be empty.”
At that moment, Sussman was enlightened.

toomanysecrets

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Re: Eugenics
« Reply #76 on: January 09, 2013, 02:14:32 pm »

I cannot imagine WW3 lasting long enough for a controlled breeding program to meaningfully impact its course.

Ninja'd ...

I know I already said this, but genetic-engineering and gene therapy are not eugenics.
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Bauglir

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Re: Eugenics
« Reply #77 on: January 09, 2013, 02:19:37 pm »

I cannot imagine WW3 lasting long enough for a controlled breeding program to meaningfully impact its course.

Ninja'd ...

I know I already said this, but genetic-engineering and gene therapy are not eugenics.
And those still take many, many years for anything on the scale of a human, and that's provided you already know what to do through prior research. I don't see a hypothetical WW3 worthy of the title lasting longer than 1 year, tops. Somebody's gonna get twitchy with their nukes after they have a losing streak.
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In the days when Sussman was a novice, Minsky once came to him as he sat hacking at the PDP-6.
“What are you doing?”, asked Minsky. “I am training a randomly wired neural net to play Tic-Tac-Toe” Sussman replied. “Why is the net wired randomly?”, asked Minsky. “I do not want it to have any preconceptions of how to play”, Sussman said.
Minsky then shut his eyes. “Why do you close your eyes?”, Sussman asked his teacher.
“So that the room will be empty.”
At that moment, Sussman was enlightened.

Scoops Novel

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Re: Eugenics
« Reply #78 on: January 09, 2013, 02:29:09 pm »

My apologies, i was still thinking in space marine terms. Similar problems arise though.
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GlyphGryph

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Re: Eugenics
« Reply #79 on: January 09, 2013, 02:43:16 pm »

...why species wide or nothing?
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Scoops Novel

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Re: Eugenics
« Reply #80 on: January 09, 2013, 03:04:12 pm »

I'm sure that having a country whose wealth makes it better on a genetic level then the more impoverished is going to end well.
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PTTG??

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Re: Eugenics
« Reply #81 on: January 09, 2013, 03:49:38 pm »

Not being born is worse than inheriting a fatal genetic disorder.

Every sperm is saaaaacreeeeedd....

Humans are probably some of the weakest animals in history - no claws, no poison, slow, babies take too long to become not helpless. But because of this weakness, they mastered tools.

Human beings can throw things more accurately than any other animal; we also are one of the most high-endurance creatures; the most basic hunting method for a human being is walking after a prey animal for a day or two, not letting it sleep or eat, then throwing rocks at it when it passes out; bipedalism is great for that, much more energy efficient than quadrupeds.

Also, we're actually rather large and strong compared to the vast majority of creatures on the planet; we can easily kill any small animal we catch. It's only with our equals in mass- big cats, wolves, that we need tools to prevail regularly.
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GlyphGryph

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Re: Eugenics
« Reply #82 on: January 09, 2013, 04:24:18 pm »

I'm sure that having a country whose wealth makes it better on a genetic level then the more impoverished is going to end well.

There are always trade offs. Better at something doesn't mean better off in general. And why would it leave improverished nations in any worse shape than they are right now? I'm not quite seeing the logic - it may be there, but certainly you haven't justified it.
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Scoops Novel

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Re: Eugenics
« Reply #83 on: January 09, 2013, 04:53:14 pm »

Racism, nationalism, exploitation, extreme wealth gap etc. would be rather quick to gain in popularity now that they have scientific proof in all the ways that matter to them.
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misko27

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Re: Eugenics
« Reply #84 on: January 09, 2013, 07:50:49 pm »

Not being born is worse than inheriting a fatal genetic disorder.

Every sperm is saaaaacreeeeedd....
Reminds me of that old parodox, that wonders whther a civilization with fewer people but more happiness is better, or worse, then a civilization of equal happiness  but spread out amongst more people.
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penguinofhonor

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Re: Eugenics
« Reply #85 on: January 09, 2013, 07:53:58 pm »

I believe you're thinking of the mere addition paradox.
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Criptfeind

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Re: Eugenics
« Reply #86 on: January 09, 2013, 08:47:17 pm »

How exactly would this make sub-human slaves? Why wouldn't it result in super-human prodigies?

What's the difference? When you start genetically engineering people for specific tasks then you open the flood gates to... Uh. Generically engineering people for specific tasks.

Does the fact that some people are bigger and stronger "enslave" them to the weightlifting circuit? Does a gift for mathematics "enslave" someone to Academia?

Yes. Absolutely it does. Especially when people start saying things like "You know what? This weight lifter does not really need a IQ above 20 does he? And this Academic does not need legs does she?" But even without that, if you start breeding people for specific tasks how is that not slavery?

Honestly, this sort of contention makes no sense at all. How would this lead to sub-human slave races? They would still be 100% human by any reasonable definition, in the same way a greyhound and a poodle are both 100% dog.

Yeah. They are dogs. Of course, since dogs are all sub human slaves I am not sure if that is a comparison you want be making.

There are always trade offs.

Why?

Better at something doesn't mean better off in general.

This is exactly my point. Although it hardly matters since until you answer the previous question I don't think we are meaning it in the same way.

And why would it leave improverished nations in any worse shape than they are right now? I'm not quite seeing the logic - it may be there, but certainly you haven't justified it.

It does not really make them worse. So much as make it less likely for them to get better. I mean. Once the new humanity is in place and the gap between first world and third world is even larger then we have now it becomes way easier not to care about them, because they are like. Not even genetically us now? It becomes way easier for us to exploit them.

Whatever though. I'm not really worried about it too much, since as you say impoverished nations already suck, and they may not actually get worse. So who cares. I don't really care about them.
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Realmfighter

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Re: Eugenics
« Reply #87 on: January 09, 2013, 09:01:18 pm »

How exactly would this make sub-human slaves? Why wouldn't it result in super-human prodigies?

What's the difference? When you start genetically engineering people for specific tasks then you open the flood gates to... Uh. Generically engineering people for specific tasks.

Does the fact that some people are bigger and stronger "enslave" them to the weightlifting circuit? Does a gift for mathematics "enslave" someone to Academia?

Yes. Absolutely it does. Especially when people start saying things like "You know what? This weight lifter does not really need a IQ above 20 does he? And this Academic does not need legs does she?" But even without that, if you start breeding people for specific tasks how is that not slavery?


If we're already genetically engineering people to be better at a specific task we might as well make it so that they enjoy their given position and gain complete fulfillment from it. The only way this situation could work would either be that, or a complete totalitarian government forcing people to fulfill the tasks they were designed for. And really, all it would take to destroy that system would be the majority of the law enforcing humans disapproving of the system that oppress them as much as anyone else. If they can be brainwashed or changed to be bloodthirsty monsters, everyone else could be changed to love and accept their jobs too.
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Muz

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Re: Eugenics
« Reply #88 on: January 09, 2013, 09:09:08 pm »

This seems like. Maybe not right. Humans didn't say to each other one day "Oh shit man! No claws? No teeth? No scales?! Better find out how to make some fucking spears." Humans are not actually weak in a number of areas, and even then we evolved our intellect and physical bodies in tandem.

I guess it does not really matter, but what you said really bothered me for some reason. But. Whatever.
Yeah this is true.  Firstly humans do have a few physical strengths:
- Being able to sweat all over the body allows us to be active in very hot weather where most other animals would have to give up
- Having two legs means we are actually one of the fastest animals over short distances
- Opposable thumbs (useful even without building tools - most animals can't withstand a barrage of rocks)

These three things would make humans very effective in their home ground of the savannah (probably mainly as scavengers/gatherers), and then the development of larger brains combined with tool use probably eventually allowed them to spread out.

Well, I mean a human can't really hunt a creature as well as say, a large feline, or escape from one as easily as a rabbit. You can engineer a human to superhuman (i.e. animal-like) strength and agility, but he'll still have trouble surviving in the wilds without tools and training. Humans thrive via social activity and the ability to use tools as an extension of the body.

The only argument you can push forward for eugenics is perhaps increased intelligence, but then a lot of the people who became really skilled people were not born of a higher IQ. In a sense, starting off with a learning advantage makes people take for granted the amount of effort it takes to really learn a skill. You can drill into them a culture of learning (like many Asians do), but it does not help them thrive in a lot of real world situations (like many Asian-Americans do after graduating from those ivy league colleges).

Though yeah, there's too many factors there whether or not there's a correlation. But I'm saying that some of the best people in the world are quite imperfect. One of the fastest runners in the world today has no feet. One of the smartest people in the world can't even move or talk without tools.

If anyone in the modern world does go for eugenics, it'd probably be China anyway, what with their policy of being forced to have only two children, and being on the unethical side of things. To everyone else, eugenics is just too socially expensive.
« Last Edit: January 09, 2013, 09:11:59 pm by Muz »
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GlyphGryph

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Re: Eugenics
« Reply #89 on: January 09, 2013, 09:21:18 pm »

Uh... why would the government have to force people to fulfill "the tasks they were designed for" (which is really a lot more targeted than is likely to ever be needed, versatility is a boon in most fields)?

Do you think there's going to be a shortage of these people? That we would need to force them into things? If there IS, and they are good at what they do, they'll be a ton of demand, and they'll be able to pick and choose. And there's nothing saying they have to choose a job in what they've been optimized for - most people don't do their optimal job. For the sorts of jobs that we would WANT to optimize people for, aka jobs we can't automate or we can't optimize existing people for mechanically, the sort of skills they'd need to be able to easily develop are exactly the sort of skills that would be able to give them power over their own lives, probably far more than most of us have right now, where it's work a dead-end job in the big-box-retail-store or our children starve, because we can't figure out another way out.

Cript, your suppositions are frankly ridiculous. Please, spell out to me a /single/ scenario where we would ever WANT to make someone so constrained they were incapable of anything other than some specific task.

I mean, the sort of stuff you guys are saying... it's nonsense. There's no incentives for that sort of development, except to the extent that all that exact same shit already happens. You're trying to say that giving people another /excuse/ will actually change that?

Let's take a hypothetical example, and say we've been working on a group of every smart, versatile, managerial types with a tendency to be more truthful than average. This is sort of the "ideal employee" for a great many automation-resistant positions. Hell, let's even say we design him so that he ENJOYS working, and doesn't really find most of the time wasters we engage in enjoyable, and he's got a constitution that lets him squeeze every ounce of enjoyment out of his job by working long hours and enjoying the work. Not too much, though, obviously - an ideal employee takes care of themselves so they can continue to grow their skills and knowledge and stay sharp.

Would this truly be that bad? Would this group become "slaves"? If anything, I'd imagine they'd be more likely to end up in charge.

The only risk I can possible see, insane and absurd hypotheticals aside, is the risk of "normal people" eventually being displaced from jobs they want by those better suited for them.

And you know what? That's life. That's how it works right this instant. The only thing that changes is that these people are doing /better/ - so stuff ends up cheaper, better decisions are made, etc. and so on. Is this something we should be afraid of?
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